Heritage Florida Jewish News - Central Florida's Independent Jewish Voice

The story of Passover, more than any other Jewish holiday, is all about miracles. A burning bush. A staff that turns into a serpent. Ten plaques, each one worse than the previous one. The parting of the Red Sea. Manna coming down from heaven. Moses...

(JTA) — Those who might have described “Curb Your Enthusiasm” as a kind of “Seinfeld” on steroids got a fitting conclusion on Sunday, as the last episode of Larry David’s landmark 12-season sitcom was essentially a reprise of the much-malign...

There are numerous assistance programs available to veterans who need advanced in-home care. These include: • Aid and Attendance Benefits (A&A) — Available to veterans who receive a VA pension and meet certain other requirements, this program can...

(JTA) — How might we celebrate Passover differently this year? With so many Israelis brutally murdered on Oct. 7, so many soldiers killed or wounded in battle, so many people — Palestinians and aid workers — dead or suffering in Gaza, we canno...

While hearing aids make sounds louder, cochlear implants make them louder and clearer. They work better in noisy environments than hearing aids. Cochlear hearing implant technology is very reliable and has been around for 40 years. It is not major...

(JTA) — When Mel Brooks was filming “The Producers,” he recalled an executive approaching him and saying, “The curly-haired guy—he’s funny looking. Fire him.” Brooks said he would fire the actor, but never intended to actually do it. And when “The...

(JTA) — Georgia Hunter was 15 when she discovered that her grandfather was Jewish. The revelation took place a year after his death, while Hunter was interviewing her grandmother for a school project. “A high school English teacher said, ‘Go out a...

(JNS) — The 19th-century English novelist Charlotte Brontë is best known for her 1847 novel “Jane Eyre,” which is a staple of many U.S. middle and high school curricula. A new journal article addresses a different side of the Victorian writer...

The scientific definition of laughing is a “successive, rhythmic, spasmodic expiration with open glottis and vibration of the vocal cords.” That doesn’t begin to tell the story of what laughing does for us. The bottom line is that laughing is medic...

Coming home to Israel after a trip overseas to anywhere, for any length of time, is always emotional. Choking back tears, in a matter of minutes I see the coast, cities with countless construction sites indicating growth and building for the future,...

From the evening of April 22 to April 30, Jews across the world partake in the annual celebration of Passover, a 3,300-year-old story of freedom and sacrifice, commemorating their liberation from slavery in Egypt. It’s one of the most widely c...

There are certain signals that might mean it is time to give up the car keys. Unfortunately, very few seniors pay attention to these signs: • You are nervous behind the wheel. • Your reactions are too slow due to your vision. • You have troub...

In October, on a miserable, windy, rainy day, Larry and I found a puddle on our kitchen floor. Looking up, we could see water coming from one of our recessed lights. Damn! We called a roofing company the next day. After spending an hour directing a...

(JTA) — On Tuesday, Feb. 27, I was jolted awake at 3:30 a.m., wrestling with unwelcome consciousness until I eventually exhausted or bored myself back to sleep. Three hours later, I awoke to the news that my friend Ellen Bernstein — author, rab...

ORLANDO (JTA) — Ethan Smith ranks fifth in his New Jersey high school class, scored high on the SAT and aced a full slate of five Advanced Placement tests last year. On Oct. 1, he submitted his application to a nearby Ivy League school, the U...